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Desktop Dashboard

By the end of this page, you'll know what the KruxOS desktop is, the surfaces it gives you, and how to switch between the Desktop and Classic dashboard layouts.

Feature preview — and the default in v0.0.3

The desktop is a preview and the default layout in v0.0.3: with no saved preference, signing in — and the dashboard home — lands you on the desktop. Every classic page stays reachable; see Switching layouts.

What the desktop is

The desktop is an OS-style view over the same KruxOS dashboard you already know. Instead of moving page to page, you supervise your appliance from a single "desktop": open the surfaces you care about as free-form windows, keep an eye on health and pending approvals from a menu bar and widgets, and act on approval requests as they arrive. Every windowed app shows the same live data as its classic page — it's the same backend, just arranged differently.

The main surfaces

  • Menu bar — a top strip showing the pending-approvals count, overall health status, and the clock, plus the menu you use to lock your session.
  • Windows — open surfaces as free-form windows you can drag, resize, and arrange however you like.
  • Dock — your running agents, always one click away.
  • Command palette (⌘K) — press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) to jump to a surface or action without reaching for the mouse.
  • Mission Control — a zoomed-out overview of everything you have open.
  • Desktop widgets — at-a-glance tiles for health, pending approvals, and live activity.
  • Notification center — where approval requests arrive as actionable interrupts (see below).

Approving from the desktop

Approval requests surface in the notification center as actionable interrupts with Approve and Reject buttons. This is the same approval queue as the classic Approvals page — deciding a request in one place settles it everywhere — and every decision runs through the same deterministic policy engine. Nothing about how approvals are evaluated changes; the desktop is simply another surface to act on them.

Switching layouts

The layout is a per-browser preference (stored locally, like your theme), so each browser you sign in from remembers its own choice.

To switch, open Settings › System and use the Dashboard layout card — it's present on both layouts:

  • Choose Classic to return to the page-by-page dashboard.
  • Choose Desktop to go back to the OS-style view.

Either way, every classic page stays reachable by its direct URL in either mode, so nothing is hidden by the layout you pick.

Locking your session

Use the menu bar to open the lock screen when you step away. Unlock by signing back in with your dashboard passphrase.